or the
reception of these vegetables, about the middle of April, and when Dr.
Richardson visited this place on May 10th, the blade of wheat looked
strong and healthy. There were only five acres in cultivation at the
period of my visit. The prospect from the fort must be pretty in summer,
owing to the luxuriant verdure of this fertile soil; but in the uniform
and cheerless garb of winter, it has little to gratify the eye.

Beyond the steep bank behind the house, commences the vast plain, whose
boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch
of the Saskatchawan, and towards the sources of the Missouri, and
Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of
this great space by hills, or even rising grounds. The excellent
pasturage furnishes food in abundance, to a variety of grazing animals,
of which the buffalo, red-deer, and a species of antelope, are the most
important. Their presence naturally attracts great hordes of wolves,
which are of two kinds, the large, and the small. Many bears prowl about
the banks of this river in summer; of these the grizzle bear is the most
ferocious, and is held in dread both by Indians and Europeans. The
traveller, in crossing these plains, not only suffers from the want of
food and water, but is also exposed to hazard from his horse stumbling
in the numerous badger-holes. In many large districts, the only fuel is
the dried dung of the buffalo; and when a thirsty traveller reaches a
spring, he has not unfrequently the mortification to find the water
salt.

Carlton House, and La Montee, are provision-posts, only an
inconsiderable quantity of furs being obtained at either of them. The
provisions are procured in the winter season from the Indians, in the
form of dried meat and fat, and when converted by mixture into pemmican,
furnish the principal support of the voyagers, in their passages to and
from the depots in summer. A considerable quantity of it is also kept
for winter use, at most of the fur-posts, as the least bulky article
that can be taken on a winter journey. The mode of making pemmican is
very simple, the meat is dried by the Indians in the sun, or over a
fire, and pounded by beating it with stones when spread on a skin. In
this state it is brought to the forts, where the admixture of hair is
partially sifted out, and a third part of melted fat incorporated with
it, partly by turning the two over with a wooden shovel, partly by
kneadin